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10 People Shot in D.C., 5 Fatally -- All For Cheap Bracelet

The bracelet sounds like it might have been one of those advertised on second tier cable channels after midnight, the kind of item sometimes described as “genuine gold tone.”

It was a cheap, artificial keepsake, that bracelet, according to press reports so far. The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C. won’t comment on specifics, saying the bracelet is part of the investigation.

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This young teenage singer was shocked when Keith Urban invited her on stage at his concert. A few moments later, he made her wildest dreams come true.

According to the Washington Post, a bracelet was missing, so the 19-year-old owner and another man shot at and killed a 20-year-old they suspected of stealing the bracelet. Eight days later, just after the suspected thief’s funeral, armed men drove to a DC apartment building and opened fire, killing four others and wounding five.

To add irony to tragedy, the media reports that the bracelet hadn’t even been stolen. It had been picked up for safekeeping by a friend of the owner, who later turned in to investigators.

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This young teenage singer was shocked when Keith Urban invited her on stage at his concert. A few moments later, he made her wildest dreams come true:

We value life too little when we make it so easy for dangerous people to arm themselves. We mourn the deaths, and we are shocked at the horrendous incidents. But one of the reasons a 14-year-old boy and two young adults are in jail now facing murder charges is because we practically give them these firearms, including military-style assault weapons. Some say we need more people with more guns in more places to make us all safer. How would that have helped the young girl standing on the sidewalk as the shots were fired from the car? The logic is insulting – in order to put out the fire, they say, pour more gasoline on it.

I am reminded of a somber scene from near the end of the 1996 movie Fargo. In the scene, the police chief played by Frances McDormand (who won the Best Actress award for the film) drives her police cruiser, looking up to her rear view mirror at the killer handcuffed in the back seat, and laments.